Statutes Given for Our Good Always, February 9

Statutes Given for Our Good Always, February 9

And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. Deuteronomy 6:24.

As the youth go out into the world, to encounter its allurements to sin,—the passion for money-getting, for amusement and indulgence, for display, luxury, and extravagance, the overreaching, fraud, robbery and ruin,—what are the teachings there to be met?

Spiritualism asserts that men are unfallen demigods; that “each mind will judge itself”; that “true knowledge places men above all law”; that “all sins committed are innocent”; for “whatever is, is right,” and “God doth not condemn.” The basest of human beings it represents as in heaven, and highly exalted there.... Multitudes are thus led to believe that desire is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that man is accountable only to himself.

With such teaching given at the very outset of life, when impulse is strongest, and the demand for self-restraint and purity is most urgent, where are the safeguards of virtue? ... At the same time anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human....

Such are the influences to be met by the youth of today. To stand amidst such upheavals they are now to lay the foundations of character. In every generation and in every land the true foundation and pattern for character-building have been the same. The divine law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, ... and thy neighbour as thyself,” the great principle made manifest in the character and life of our Saviour, is the only secure foundation and the only sure guide....

Here is the only safeguard for individual integrity, for the purity of the home, the well-being of society, or the stability of the nation. Amidst all life’s perplexities and dangers and conflicting claims, the one safe and sure rule is to do what God says.26 [47]